Turning Around Online Ratings

The Wall Street Journal had a good piece yesterday about the importance of online ratings for small businesses. Their lead anecdote is a great case study for what to do when you find that your ratings are low:

After looking up her spa for the first time on Yelp Inc., a popular Web site where urbanites rate local businesses, Peggy Wynne Borgman nearly headed for a steambath herself. Four out of five reviews of her business were chilly or lukewarm.

Ms. Borgman, the owner of Preston Wynne spas in Saratoga, Calif., decided to try to do something about her "miserable" 2½-star rating.

Using Yelp's email system, she typed out messages to each downbeat reviewer to find out more about what went wrong -- and to try to make it right. And she sent a thank you to the happy customer. Then she added to her email newsletter a note encouraging regular clients to get online and share their good experiences. Several stressful months later, the spa's rating had climbed to an acceptable four stars.

"It's personal and it's painful, a public flogging like that," Ms. Borgman says. But today, Yelp is an important source of new visitors for her two California spas, she says, "which is funny, considering I originally thought it was the tool of the devil."